Media day is a great way to showcase athletes and their colorful personalities. Will Nolan (11), a photographer for LHS Publications, took photos for varsity wrestling’s media day.
“Media Day is a great opportunity to show who that person is as an athlete,” Nolan said.
The first step was getting the perfect setting. For wrestling, it was an apparent choice, the wrestling mat. For soccer it was a different story. At first the team thought of doing the shooting for soccer at the theater, but it didn’t work out because the drama crew was using the theater at that time. They had to brainstorm and eventually decided that they’ll do the photos for soccer at the innovation library.
The second step was getting the perfect lighting. Nolan had to fetch the lights from art teacher Johnathan Purvis and go to the respectful location to set up the lights with the help of his team.
The third step is the photography part. The team got the camera and setup in the designated area.
The settings for the camera was an obstacle they had to overcome because the scene for wrestling was pitch black and they had to change the exposure and the time it took to take the photos.
Nolan doesn’t usually take photos of wrestling, but he thought the experience was fun. In total, the picture taking part took about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
The rest of the media day crew were great help. They were thinking of poses, set up the lighting, and they did the cleaning up. Overall, they’re a very essential part to making media day happen.
One student who helped Nolan through this process was Amber Sethaler (12).
“I helped carry the props to the wrestling room, and I also made sure the lighting was perfect,” Sethaler said.
When the wrestling season actually starts, there will be another media day which will be a lot bigger and better and have smoke machines. A lot of the other sports’ media day can expect similar props.
For the most part, the players were very cooperative and enthusiastic. They brought great energy to media day and helped make this happen. Wrestling is a mixed sport so people got to show off their multiple personalities and how well they work together as a team.
The fourth and final step to media day is editing the pictures and finalizing them. The media day team spent a lot of time shifting through the pictures. For wrestling, in total they took 367 pictures for 19 people. The editing part took a lot longer because they had to look for the perfect picture to suit each special athlete.
And that is what goes on behind the scenes of media day .
“I had so much fun at media day,” Jayden Mhandu (9) said.
